Cherry Picking 2023

Cherry Tree had a great year. After surviving locusts and disease over the past couple of years, the tree was ready to bear fruit.

Pre-Pick

Pick-in-Progress

Some (50%) of cherries on the tree

Unfortunately there is a lot of disease still slowing growth. Now that we picked the cherries its time to spray.

June 5 update: shaking the tree today yielded another 8 cherries from the tippy top (that we could not reach ... even after borrowing John S's ladder.

Pitting cherries to make a cherry pie

Thanks Sara. Delicious!

Whitetail Mountain Biking - Lost in Mountains

Normal bike ride to Sidewinder and down: 23 minutes

Todays ride - Duchess, Bear Pond Loop, lost: 3 hours

Route with elevation

 

According local experts I should have known to take a fire road/truck path instead of the random sort-of-path that I took. 

Random path, old ski equipment

 

Bear Pond Loop sign (prior to being lost)

 

Congrats Don and Brandi

We travelled to Purcellville for Brandi and Don's engagement party. Ms. Hillary had a rabbit that got a LOT of attention. We didn't get any pictures of the water balloon fight.

Hang Out All Afternoon

Julia and RJ had soccer games at 3pm. After Julia's game, she decided that Norah would hang out. So we went to RJ's hockey game and came home for dinner (burgers and hot dogs).

During just before dinner, it rained ... a LOT. 

Puring rain (not easy to see in pic) didn't stop trampoline play

After drying off, Norah needed some dry clothes ... twins!

McLean Day 2023

Sara took the kids to McLean day while Doug took advantage of great weather to do some yard work. The kids did bubble wars, climbing, chotsky gathering, and of course ... cotton candy.

 

Julia climbs to the top

RJ preps for climbing camp

 

That's a LOT of cotton candy

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If Sara allowed it ... the kids would have eaten that entire bag before lunch.

Birds, Up Up and Away

Sometime between 8am and 11am today, the baby mockingbirds left the nest. One stayed in the pachysandra until the next day. 

Friday, May 19

Saturday, May 20 @ 8am

Saturday, May 20 @ 11am

Hopefully the parents continue chasing crows out of the back yard ... because the cherries are almost ready to eat.

Mothers Day and Baby Birds

We started the day strawberry picking at Shlagel Farms. 

The classic sign picture

The place looks empty ... because it's 10 minutes before opening

Kids has a few strawberries and a milkshake. We had enough strawberries for 2 strawberry pies, chocolate covered strawberries, a pile of strawberries to eat, and plenty left to freeze.

As a 'Mother's Day' gift, we got Sara an endoscope. The purpose was to spy on the baby birds that are nesting by our garage. We got several pictures and videos.

The first is a side view ... 

RJ moved the camera to a position looking down and called it a "bird's eye view." Sounds like Grandma Diane spent too much time talking to RJ while she was here :-)

The birds were probably glad when it was time for everybody to get ready for bed.

Ice Maker Challenges

The ice maker stopped working. I took it out of the refrigerator and inspected it. Then I noticed that the optical sensor light was blinking twice. This meant that the board had to be replaced.

So, $22 later, I replaced the board pictured below.

Easy replacement ... right on the inside right of the door

After replacing the optical sensor board the flanges spun around, but the water did not flow to fill the tray. And the spinning was rather random.

As a last ditch effort (to avoid paying $65 for a new icemaker), I took the darn thing apart again.

When I took the ice maker apart the first time a weak electrical connection (see corrosion below) must have been severed.

Note the corrosion where the screwdriver is pointing.

 

To fix the issue, I soldered some random copper wire in the joint so contact would occur. The fix was pretty lame, so I will probably be making another repair in about 6 months.

When I re-assembled the thing water started flowing and ice got made ... and made ... and made ... and made. 

Restless Night

Repair was finished at 10pm - right before bed. Every 45 minutes the dang thing went CLUNK-CLUNK when ice fell. Then 10 seconds later SSSHHHH while more water entered. By morning the ice maker was full and I was still tired.